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We Are All Jews Now

This post is a reworking of a portion a letter I recently wrote to a friend whom I alienated during the series of events described in “Reframing the Game.” I figure the breakdown of ideas I shared in the letter can further clarify my views to the readership of Dethrone Mammon in addition to repairing the damaged relationship with my friend.

As a further exploration of the Judeo-American world described in this blog’s introductory remarks, I hereby move to incorporate the germane idea that We Are All Jews Now.

If I’m not mistaken, it’s an idea I had actually thought up myself before hearing it expressed in an interview with Dr. E. Michael Jones, who himself was citing the thesis of Jewish author Yuri Slezkine’s book The Jewish Century. As I convey in “Reframing the Game,” Dr. Jones’ work has a tendency to line up with ideas I’ve had for a while, but unlike my previous efforts detailed in the article, Jones’ presentation is formal, scholarly, and supported by myriad literary and historical data. The relatively mainstream Catholic journalist Michael Voris has even featured him on one of his shows. To my readers I recommend checking out the Doctor’s books or subscribing to his magazine CultureWars. From the Princeton University Press website’s description of The Jewish Century:

This masterwork of interpretative history begins with a bold declaration: The Modern Age is the Jewish Age—and we are all, to varying degrees, Jews. The assertion is, of course, metaphorical. But it underscores Yuri Slezkine’s provocative thesis. Not only have Jews adapted better than many other groups to living in the modern world, they have become the premiere symbol and standard of modern life everywhere.

In the world as it is, there can be only two truly basic modes, two poles of attraction: the Christian and the Jewish. Only two religions: Christian and Jewish. All that is not of Christ and for Christ is done in favour of Judaism. It follows from that, that the de-Christianizing of the world runs parallel to its Judaizing [emphasis mine].

As St. Thomas Aquinas explains,

There are two mystical bodies in this world: The Mystical Body of Christ and the mystical body of the Devil or of the Antichrist. To one or another every man belongs. The Mystical Body of Christ is the Holy Church, His pure and faithful Spouse. The mystical body of the Devil is the ensemble of impious men. Like an adulterous wet nurse, it nourishes this ensemble. The Devil is its head, and the evil persons are its members. “The body of the Devil,” says St. Gregory, “is composed by all the impious men.” Just as Christ, in Himself and through His disciples, always seeks to cut off the members of the Devil and incorporate them to Himself … so also does the Devil. By his efforts and those of his cohorts, the Devil aims to amputate the members of Christ to unite them to the sordid members of his prostitute [emphasis mine].

The mystical body of the Devil can be framed as “Jewish” for the same reason that post-Christian Jews are referred to by Christ as “the synagogue of Satan” in St. John’s Apocalypse, which is to say, Judaism’s status is uniquely diabolical among false religions, which is covered in detail in “Mystery.” On the human level, the ultimate war in the universe is between the Catholics and the Jews (or at least so-called Jews; more on that shortly). Whereas I don’t mean to suggest that the Church has vanished from the face of the earth by saying that We Are All Jews Now, the modern world that is by no mere coincidence so well-suited to Jewish proclivities has affected the thinking and behavior of us all to a terrific extent.

Accordingly, notwithstanding its Hebrew origins, Catholicism cannot be unqualifiedly framed as “Jewish” apart from the suggestion that the Church is really on the side of its own worst enemies. The seeming popularity of this frame among modern Catholics conveys Dr. Jones’ thesis that the Church has internalized the commands of its oppressors in the post-WWII era, an academic discussion of which is beyond the scope of this post (in short, We Are All Jews Now).

Granted, the context of the quoted selection from the Apocalypse moreover says that the so-called Jews are not actually Jews (Apocalypse 2-3), but in common parlance a Jew is someone who is defined by his rejection of Christ and of Christianity, which is a frame that also appears in the Bible in St. John’s Gospel and elsewhere. As such, we need to be careful about what that word means before we start throwing it around. Even Holy Writ uses it in diametrically opposed ways, kind of like how both Christ and Satan are symbolized by the lion. The qualifier of ancient Judaism helps to alleviate this confusion, given that Catholicism is an organic development and the fulfillment thereof.

The common parlance mentioned is the reason for my impression that the title of Dr. Taylor Marshall’s book The Crucified Rabbi seems deliberately geared to be misleading. He ought to know that his word choice brings to mind images of a post-Christian Jewish Christ—i.e., an anti-Christian Christ—hanging on a cross, marked by accessories like a yarmulke or payot, which are developments unique to post-Christian Judaism. In fact, Marshall’s title reminds me of Jewish painter Marc Chagall’s piece the White Crucifixion, which sacrilegiously conflates the redemptive suffering of our sinless Lord on the Cross with the historical suffering of the sinful Jewish people, the latter of which has by my reading been in many cases a divinely ordained chastisement. One might be unsurprised to hear that said painting is apparently the favorite of Francis I. Once again, We Are All Jews Now.

One might here bring up the fact that Jesus is called Rabbi in the Bible. Whereas in the common parlance a rabbi is someone whose livelihood entails being at war with the truth of the Gospel, the literal meaning of the word is teacher or master, which of course applies to Jesus. Again, carefulness is required. I take issue with Marshall’s insensitivity to or calculated desire to profit from a situation where We Are All Jews Now. This is not to mention his unjustified framing of sedevacantism as a heresy when Fr. Brian Harrison, who has made a heroic effort to reconcile the highly contentious Dignitatis humanae with previous Church teaching, has said that convinced sedevacantists are not even formally schismatic. I haven’t yet read Marshall’s book, though I suspect that he doesn’t go to great lengths to denounce the synagogue of Satan for what it is.

To reiterate my position on the “elder brother” thing mentioned in “Reframing the Game,” post-Christian Jews can’t be called our elder brothers in the faith of Abraham because they are not in the faith of Abraham. Again, this is for the biblical reason that “if you be Christ’s, then are you the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29). Christianity is the faith of Abraham. Though accidentally different from the religion of the Old Testament Jews, Christianity, i.e., Catholicism, is substantially the same. Post-Christian Judaism, on the other hand, is a substantial departure from the Old Testament faith. Recklessly asserting that the synagogue of Satan constitutes the flock of Christ’s elder brethren in the same faith is unsound for obvious reasons. This Culture Wars article gives the okay to referring to post-Christian Jews as our elder brothers, but only in the ironic sense that Esau is the elder brother of Jacob; that is, in a sense that excludes their being in the faith of Abraham.

To further tie this back to Holy Scripture, the passage from Romans dealing with the Jews is an interesting one that I’ve thought about a good deal. My question is how to apply that to when We Are All Jews Now. For example, did Donald Trump’s daughter transform from a wild shoot into a natural branch that has broken off the tree when she converted to Judaism? Assuming that my aunt is correct in surmising that our family has Jewish heritage and not merely jumping to conclusions inspired by her American “philo-Semitism,” am I a grafted wild shoot to the extent that I have Gentile DNA and a natural branch to the extent that I have Ashkenazi DNA? Aren’t Ashkenazi Jews a European admixture anyway? At this point, isn’t it fairly safe to assume that most people have at least some Jewish ancestors? Whatever happened to the Jews who accepted Christ that St. Paul writes to in his Epistle to the Hebrews? Are they a part of the Jewish nation defined by its explicit rejection of Christ? Etc. My point with all this is that I feel like that passage is falsely taken to mean we should give the so-called Jews a break despite their wanton criminality discussed in depth by Dr. E. Michael Jones. Obviously we need to encourage their conversion to the true faith, but I’m not about to sear my conscience by acquiescing to the rhetorical boundaries they have set up in order to make that happen. Enough “dialogue.” If we are going to fight, then let us fight.